


New Year's Eve (two years ago)

by astrid_fischer



Series: 'le révolutionnaire', an a.b.c. press publication [9]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1403230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrid_fischer/pseuds/astrid_fischer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire’s lying stretched out on one of the motley crew of bargain shop desks in the small upstairs room tonight’s party had christened the A.B.C. Press. The smell of fresh paint is heavy, even with the cold clean air creeping in through the cracked 1920s windows (“An easy fix,” Enjolras had promised, when he noticed Feuilly edging closer to the ancient radiator and Joly pulling a third lumpy sweater over his head).</p>
<p>In which a press is founded, most everyone is (not) asleep, and the editor has a conversation with the resident cynic.</p>
<p>(cross-posted from Tumblr! NOT a new work to anyone who follows me there, sorry lovelies)</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year's Eve (two years ago)

**Author's Note:**

> so! it's been forever since i updated the press on tumblr (come visit me!! say hi!! archangelruind dot tumblr dot com) but i am going to slowly try and move over the fics (and there are many) which never made it over here. i emphasize that if ya follow me over there, this will not be a new fic for you. i'm trying to get back on that horse, but for now just putting things in order. this will HOPEFULLY have a couple more parts to it, one for each new year's eve e/r have spent together (deliberately or no).

New Year’s Day

_Two Years Ago_

Grantaire’s lying stretched out on one of the motley crew of bargain shop desks in the small upstairs room tonight’s party had christened the A.B.C. Press. The smell of fresh paint is heavy, even with the cold clean air creeping in through the cracked 1920s windows (“An easy fix,” Enjolras had promised, when he noticed Feuilly edging closer to the ancient radiator and Joly pulling a third lumpy sweater over his head).

It’s just past one in the morning, and Grantaire’s half-dozing and half-humming a tune which lacks any semblance of rhythm with the last, mostly-empty bottle of wine (hidden from Bahorel and Jehan, who had drunk most everything else in the office themselves) tucked comfortably under one arm. He’s much too tall to fit on the desk completely, so his legs are dangling down over the edge.

Eponine is already asleep on the floor next to the desk, using his balled-up plaid shirt as a makeshift pillow, limbs tucked in tight like a cat’s. From this vantage point, he can’t see Courfeyrac or Bahorel, but he’s hazily sure they’d elected to crash out here too rather than trying to find their way home in the lazily falling snow.

A step on the stairs is the only warning before the overhead light flickers on. Grantaire groans and flings an arm up to cover his eyes. “Have mercy.”

A sigh, and the room is cast into darkness again. Grantaire flops his arm over his stomach instead, scratching his ribs, and tilts his head back to squint at the new arrival. “Thought you were out for the night.”

“I was. And then I had a thought that some very drunk people may have fallen asleep in the office and forgotten either to lock the door or crank up the radiator, and would therefore either be mugged or frozen by morning.” Enjolras pauses by the desk to pull the bottle out of Grantaire’s grasp, ignoring the other man’s slurred protests, and then continues on to stand by the window.

Now Grantaire can see him, his silhouette cut sharp against the light from the streetlamps outside. “Good instincts, then,” he says. He can hear the hiss as the other man turns the knob on the radiator and it shudders into reluctant, clanking action.          

Enjolras sets the bottle on the windowsill with the dull sound of glass on wood. “Are you actually in possession of an apartment?” he asks over one shoulder. He keeps his voice low, probably in deference to Eponine, who shifts in her sleep but doesn’t wake up.

“At this point, I’m not really sure,” Grantaire answers, rubbing at the three days’ worth of stubble on his chin and letting one eye slide shut again. “Don’t they take those away from you if you don’t give them any money?”

Even in the dark, even with the other man facing away from him, Grantaire can tell that Enjolras smiles at that. He can tell, because he’s never paid half as much attention to anything in his life as he pays to Enjolras.

“Be serious,” Enjolras tells him now, rolling his eyes. It’s one in the morning, but he doesn’t seem tired. From the few times they’ve been in company together, Grantaire’s gotten the sense that Enjolras views sleep as others might view croquet—a perfectly respectable pastime, nothing wrong with it, just not for everyone.

Grantaire’s lips turned up at the edges. It’s too easy, really. “Serious? I am wild.”

“You’re drunk.”

“You’re surprised?”

“You’re hopeless.”

Grant grins, and his teeth are a flash of white in the dim room.

The blond man turns to look at him, and those blue eyes scan his face in the slow, scrutinizing way he has that makes heat rise in Grantaire’s cheeks despite himself. Thank God for the dark.

Even in the dark, though, Enjolras manages to be illuminated; his hair gleams like spun gold in the moonlight spilling through the window behind him. It’s like the light loves him so much it can’t bear to abandon him even at night. “Why are you still here?” Enjolras asks, tipping idly at the confiscated bottle with one finger.

“I seem to have drunk too much to stand,” Grantaire answers with a good deal of mock-solemnity.

Enjolras only shakes his head slightly, folding his arms over his chest as he leans back against the wall. “Playing dumb doesn’t suit you.”

“I respectfully disagree.” Grantaire lets his eyelids slide down so they’re almost closed. “ _I_ think it suits me quite well.”

Enjolras had been so perfectly, precisely still in the previous moment that Grantaire couldn’t have imagined he was about to move. But move he does, walking away from the window and dropping one hand flat onto the wood of the desk by Grantaire’s head, close enough to make the prone man’s eyes snap back open, not bothering to hide his shock at the sudden complete lack of space between them.

Enjolras braces his weight on that one arm, dark amusement flitting briefly across his face along with the gleam of triumph in his eyes at having gotten a response at last. His expression sobers quickly.

“You don’t believe in anything,” he says, quiet but unexpectedly intense. It seems he won’t be deterred from getting a straight answer out of Grantaire, and Grantaire thinks that really, he should have known as much. “You’ve made it clear you don’t care about this project. So why didn’t you leave after the first meeting? Why have you stayed, this whole time?”

“Even those of us who don’t believe in anything have to find something to do with our time,” Grantaire answers, closing his eyes again just because he knows it’ll annoy the blond.  

Even with them shut, though, he’s almost painfully aware of the other man’s proximity, of the exact distance from Enjolras’ fingers splayed on the wood of the desk to his own shoulder. Enjolras doesn’t move away, and it’s clear that he’s still waiting for an explanation.

There’s silence between them for seconds which stretches into minutes, while Grantaire lies on the desk and Enjolras stands next to him, leaning over, blue eyes searching for something Grantaire knows he won’t possibly find.       

He could easily offer up another sarcastic response. It’s second nature, after all, and he has about fifteen flippant reports on the tip of his tongue. If he makes Enjolras mad enough, odds are the brand new editor-in-chief will fuck off and leave him alone with his thoughts. But easy though it would be, for some reason, he doesn’t want to make him angry tonight. It’s a new year, after all.

Or he could tell the truth: that Enjolras makes him believe in something, that listening to him talk about this newspaper, with something so bright and fervent in his eyes that it’s almost terrifying, really _does_ mean something to him no matter how much he denies it. That it means something because Enjolras has this irritating habit of making it impossible not to believe in him.

But he doesn’t say anything. Because every response he might give would just sound like _because I love you_ , _you utter_ fucking _idiot._

“Trying to get rid of me, Pulitzer?” he offers up at last, lips curving up in a smirk.

That wins him a brief smile. Wins, truly, because every time Grantaire gets Enjolras to smile at him like that, it feels like a victory.

Enjolras straightens up, but he continues to look down at him. Grantaire wants to tell him to stop every bit as much as he never wants him to stop. “If there’s a way to get rid of you, I haven’t found it yet,” Enjolras tells him.

“You’re welcome,” Grantaire says graciously.

Enjolras runs a hand through his own hair—Grantaire tracks the movement with his eyes and wishes he wouldn’t, catches the motion of the blonde man’s Adam’s apple as he swallows and wishes he didn’t—and checks his phone in an adamantly casual manner. There’s a barely perceptible pause before he asks, “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I guess,” Grantaire says in an offhand sort of way. As if the answer doesn’t matter much to him one way or the other.

Drunk though he is, tired though he is, he nearly jumps out of his skin when Enjolras covers the hand resting on his chest with one of his own and squeezes, ever so slightly. Grantaire’s eyes lock with Enjolras’, and they stay like that for what feels like hours but can’t even be two full seconds. Grantaire doesn’t breathe.

Then the blond man withdraws his hand and walks away across the darkened office. Grantaire can hear his soft footsteps creak on the stairs. The main door shuts, distantly, and everything is silent once more.

“Personally,” Courfeyrac says, nearly making Grantaire shriek with surprise as he pops his head up above a desk across the row like a particularly disheveled jack-in-the-box. “I am _extremely_ peeved that _I_ did not get the ever-so-intimate late-night close-talking discussion of my beliefs.”

“Me too,” Eponine’s voice drifts up from where she was meant to be sleeping below him. “I may file a complaint.”

“I thought he was going to take you right there on the desk,” Bahorel says conversationally from across the room, and Grantaire groans and pulls the neck of his t-shirt up over his face.

“There’s still time for that,” Courfeyrac says gleefully. “I give it a week.”

“A year,” Eponine says, yawning, but this is met with resounding _boo_ s from both Bahorel and Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac talks over her, saying that there’s no way, it’ll be a week, a week and a half, _tops_.

Grantaire is the only one who hears Eponine when she shrugs, curls back into her ball, and says again, confident, “I give it a year.”


End file.
